360 Customer Audit

Your customers get touched in countless ways – by your products, services, sales, customer service, technical support, billing, ads, articles, sales materials, presentations, social media – and that is the short list. It is often difficult to gain fresh perspectives about how, why and when interactions are occurring..

Our 360 Customer Audit offers a deep, objective dive into your customer touch points through interviews with employees and customers, analysis of  existing data, and social media monitoring. We then provide a scorecard along with recommendations about how to maximize ALL the ways your organization interacts with customers.

We help organizations of any size and within any industry gain local, regional, national and global perspectives.  We also assist educational institutions and non-profits in understanding how they deal with both their clients and donors.

Brand Audit

How well is your brand resonating with customers?  Do you have one perspective and they have another?  Is you brand relevant and authentic?  What does your brand mean to different customer segments?  How is it standing up competitively?  Is there conflict between your company brand and product brands?  Are the personal brands of your leadership in synch with your organization? Does your brand reflect the values of your organization?

These are important questions, and our Brand Audit finds the answers.  We take a thorough look at both your organization’s communications AND actions. Our focus is on finding where your brand lacks clarity and consistency. Then we map these against your stated and perceived brand. The results can be illuminating.

Business Development

Business development is the exploration of the unknown – new models for doing business, new markets, new clients and customers, new licensing, new partnerships, new acquisitions.

We employ a disciplined business development process that focus on the intersection of finance, values and opportunities. We bring an outside perspective and multiple years of experience is exploring potential ideas, evaluating the up and downsides and then working to make it happen.

While our process is disciplined, we firmly believe that there is no cookie cutter approach to business development.  As entrepreneurs and experienced business people, we examine your products, market and organization with fresh eyes – often seeing new opportunities.  And then we help you through a decision-making process that enables the confidence to take bold steps.

Here are some of the questions we probe:

• Are you regularly meeting with key vendors, customers and partners to find new ideas?
• Do you have a process to fine and launch new ideas?
• Is your process for business development part of your culture or do you keep it a secret in your organization?
• Do you know clearly within your organization who has the ability to save yes to opportunities?
• Does your organization clearly understand the difference between courtship, negotiation and marriage within a framework of business development?
• Are your business development methods authentic – are you going after a win-win for everyone?
• Does your organization execute well or do ideas never really come to life?
• How good are you at saying yes? Saying no?
• Do you know who the influencers and decision brokers are in potential partners and customer organizations?

C.L.U.E. Marketing Planning

C.L.U.E.™ is an engaging and fun strategic marketing process that helps determine the most effective and cost-efficient ways to find, gain and retain customers. It starts with the premise that a company needs to look for the clues to solve the mystery of reaching their customers.  The best way to find the clues is by asking smart questions and finding either the answers or gaps in knowledge.

C = CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

The first step in the C.L.U.E.™ system is analyzing current and target customers.  . Here are some of the clues we examine:

• Who are your primary decision-makers?
• What is the difference between different market segments
• Who influences their behavior?
• What keeps them up at night?

L = LEVERAGE POINTS

The next step is determining leverage points. Just like a detective makes breakthroughs by finding weaknesses in an alibi, organizations can find leverage points by examining key issues, competition and a host of other factors.  Here are some of the clues we examine:

• Who is the competition and are they doing a good job?
• What changes in the market environment can give you an edge?
• Are there issues that you can capitalize on?
• What are your best windows of opportunity?

U = UNIQUE CREATIVE PROPOSITION

The third step is acknowledging that it’s a cold and cruel world out there. Unless you can clearly and simply state what makes your brand a must-have, you will be constantly fighting a battle against the extraordinary noise out there. . That means your selling proposition must feel unique.  Even if your brand is not unique (and most are not), you must believe, act and convince your customers and target customers that they simply cannot live without what you have to offer. Here are some of the clues we will discover:

• How will you change the lives of your targets?
• What is the emotional pull of your offering?
• What are the rational reasons for purchase?
• How would your describe why your customers need your offering in 10 words or less?

E = EXECUTIONABLE PLAN

The final step is determining an executionable plan.  Remember that strategy is everything; execution is everything else. No matter how good the detective, if he or she does not make the case then the suspect goes free.  Here are some of the clues we will discover:

• What are the most efficient customer touch points?
• How will you integrate off-line and on-line communications?
• What is a reasonable budget and timeline.?
• How will you measure success?

Community Building

Everyone talks community, but building an authentic one is not easy.  Sometimes they exist virtually. Other times in real space. And most often, both work together. Equally important is the fact that communities of customers are made up of individuals.  Knowing how to acknowledge and engage individuality while still building commonality takes smart and consistent thinking and execution. We love doing this, and our success reflects this passion.

Among our services:

• Community analysis
• Community engagement through public service
• Communication building across generations and cultures
• Social media strategies and execution
• Event planning

Content Development

In our very noisy world, you have to get your message out clearly and repeatedly. That means treating content as an important investment – just like your employees and infrastructure.

We develop content from your ideas and customers and frame them in the context of the market and issues.  We are particularly adept at clearly communicating complex products and services.  Many of our clients live in the science, technology and finance sectors so we know how to make content accurate, engaging and relevant to sophisticated readers.

Then we repurpose that content to maximize its effectiveness. Our content has put people on the cover of major news magazines and increased sales of new products.  We work with the written and spoken word as well as video and animation.

Among our services:

• Speech development
• White papers
• Case histories
• On-line content
• Magazines and newsletters
• Book development
• Sell sheets and presentations
• Training content
• Blog development

Customer Service Training

How do you teach people common sense? That’s one of the biggest challenges of customer service training.  It’s pretty easy to get people to work off of a script and excel in certain types of problem solving.  But what happens when the CUSTOMER goes off script?

Our customer service training is unique.  First, it starts with observation.  We watch and listen to how customer questions are being answered.  Then we look for patterns.  Finally, we create customized training that helps your customer service people feel comfortable and confident in their often very stressful roles.

As part of our customer service training, we also look closely at the technology being used to support customer service.  Is it cold? Does it match your brand?  Does it make your customer service appear local or outsourced? Is its focus more on data-collecting than solving problems?

Finally, we also help you train your customers in simple ways to make their experience more fulfilling and their irritation less sharp.  Often, we have found that customers do not know how to reach you quickly and efficiently so by the time they get on the phone they are already highly ticked off.  We look at the whole customer  experience so that this does not happen – including how you are helping them help themselves through mobile, on-line and phone information.

Digital and Mobile Marketing

So you just invested $10,000 in a very attractive website.  Congratulations.  Maybe.  Has it been optimized for the ever-changing world of search engine optimization?  Can you easily change the content?  How does it look on a mobile device?  Is it connected with social media?  Are you keeping up with social media?  Have you incorporated video? Is it part of your integrated communications plan.

Yep, it is a pretty complicated world out there.  And no one is more confused and has a shorter fuse than your customers.

We will advise you on what needs to be done as well as implement recommendations. If you are currently using internal and external resources, we will work with them in the collaborative manner we are known for.

Employee Communications

Is there a correlation between happy employees and happy customers? Absolutely. Is there a correlation between high growth companies and inspired employee relations?  Absolutely.

At CUSTOMERicity, we consider you employees a key audience for communications.  We work with you to deliver authentic communications that stresses clarity, collaboration and consistency.  We are experts at intergenerational communications, crisis communications and onboarding new employees.

Marketing Communications

Lots of us are tired of old-style marketing where customers are considered , um…. stupid.  We don’t look at marketing that way at all. Our quick and sharp processes let us get to the heart of the matter – the heart of your customers.  We have done this for large companies like DuPont, non-profits and small companies throughout the world.

If you have a plan, we can execute it.  If you need a plan, we can create it.  Among our expertise areas are:

• Advertising
• Event Management
• Public Relations
• New Product Launches
• Sales Materials
• Internet Marketing
• Media Planning and Buying

Sales Training

There are many excellent sales training program available that will help drive revenue.  We are fans of several.  Yet, too often sales is treated as a separate part of an organization and not integrated into areas like marketing, customer service and supply chain management.  Over and over, we hear customer complaints about promises broken, late delivers or unexpected costs.

It does not have to be that way.  Our sales training focuses on the customer and how he or she fits into your organization.  We examine different selling techniques based on size of sale, influence and repeat business. We work with sales people to improve their negotiation skills not only with customers and within their organization. We show them how to become intelligence seekers, discovering new needs of customers, competitive threats and routes to profitable revenue.

And we build on the natural talents of great salespeople to engage customers in consistent ways while maximizing the use of technology.  At the end, our methods will help yield stronger sales, increased revenues and a truly customer-focused organization.

Technology Integration

There is nothing more disruptive than new technology.  Even when people know how much it will improve their lives, getting current work done and learning new systems is challenging.  This is particularly problematic when the technology does not integrate into current ways of working, engaging customers and keeping operations running smoothly.

Our team at CUSTOMERicity knows how to integrate technology and processes with a strong regard for the human factor.  We have trained thousands of people on new systems, helped specify multi-million dollar purchases and learned all the lessons so you do not have to experience the pain.

Our technology integration system takes a holistic look at your organization, finding places of disconnects and connections. We then serve as guides through skillful project management and communications to implement within timelines and without disruption to your organization.

We are realists who understand how technology breakdowns effect the customer relationship process and how at the end of the day – the devil is in the details.